Cheney v. Obama on torture

Cheney has been on a campaign to warn Obama is making the country more vulnerable to attack.

Photo: Composite image by POLITICO

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The same 2005 memo also says harsh interrogation of a second detainee, Abu Zubaydah, “provided significant information on two operatives,” including one alleged to have plotted to deploy a radiation-laced bomb “in the Washington, D.C. area.”

However, Bradbury’s memo also conceded that some use of the techniques critics describe as torture may have been unnecessary.

"The CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation, from those who did not actually have the information,” he wrote in a footnote. “On at least one occasion, this may have resulted in what might be deemed in retrospect to have been the unnecessary use of enhanced techniques. On that occasion, although the on-scene team judged Zubaydah to be compliant, elements within CIA Headquarters still believed he was withholding information...At the direction of CIA headquarters, interrogators therefore used the waterboard one more time on Zubaydah."

Notwithstanding Cheney’s request, the Obama administration seems intent on keeping under wraps some of the intelligence derived from the interrogations. One of the largest deletions in the documents released last week was nearly an entire page that appears to describe information acquired via the tough tactics.

The sometimes contradictory information about the success of the aggressive interrogation program has led to confusing news reports. Last month, under a headline of “Detainee’s Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots,” the Washington Post reported that the waterboarding of Zubaydah was essentially unsuccessful. But Hayden said in recent interviews and an op-ed that the techniques did succeed.

“The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work,” he told Fox News Sunday.

While a series of former CIA directors and Bush administration officials have sharply criticized Obama in recent days for disclosing the legal memos, Cheney did not join that chorus Monday. In the Fox interview, he ignored a question about his assessment of that criticism and turned instead to his argument that more of the products of the interrogations should be shared with the public.“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified,” Cheney said on “Hannity.”

“I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven't announced this up till now, I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.”

Reader's Comments (309)

You have the next move Mr. President. You are now between a rock and a hard place. If you don't release the rest of the memo's, then your claim of being transparent is bogus. If you do release the memo's and the American people could clearly see that splashing water on a couple of terrorist faces actually saved American lives, then it would be clear to them that you are just playing politics with the nations security.

Haw haw! Yes, more Frat pranks! Just because we prosecuted Japanese soldiers who 'splashed water" on our troops faces, and just because the current Attorney General of the US says that this "splashing water" is torture, don't mind that!

How about I come over your place and splash water on your ignorant mug until you feel you are drowning and then you can type about it with some authority.

Wow...do ya think Cheney believes a good offense is the best defense? He is certainly taking an aggressive posture and it is most certainly a low and much traveled path. A terrorist incident was no less likely under the Bush administration than it is now, but, you can bet Cheney will be front and center saying "I told you so" if something were to happen. On his death bed, I wonder if Cheney will be proud of the way he conducted himself during and after his presidency?

Release it all and then go and arrest Cheney. He seems to be the one of the few willing to go out on and limb and say that our country, the greatest country on Earth, needs to torture people to get information. We do it and we all know well enough our soldiers and citizens will someday endure the same thing. We need the moral high ground and if Republicans are so far gone as to give into the tactics of the lowest dictators then so be it. Enough if enough, this criminal needs to be behind bars.

I know the counter-argument well -- that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that's not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, "I thought you would torture me, and when you didn't, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That's why I decided to cooperate."

Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. The cliche still bears repeating: Such outrages are inconsistent with American principles. And then there's the pragmatic side: Torture and abuse cost American lives.

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.

-- Matthew Alexander, Air Force Senior Interrogator

The ban on torture is a major step toward reclaiming our heritage as a nation of laws and a people of character. And it will enhance the country’s security by undermining Al Qaeda’s most effective recruiting theme — its portrayal of the United States as a dishonorable superpower that sanctions the type of abuses so graphically captured in the images from Abu Ghraib.

The case of Abu Zubaydah is a suitable place to begin answering some pressing but little-considered questions. Putting aside all legal and ethical issues (not to mention the P.R. ramifications), does such treatment—categorized unhesitatingly by the International Committee of the Red Cross as torture—actually work, in the sense of providing reliable, actionable intelligence? Is it superior to other interrogation methods, and if they had the choice, free of moral qualms or the fear of prosecution, would interrogators use it freely?

In researching this article, I spoke to numerous counterterrorist officials from agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Their conclusion is unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts...

Bush discussed Abu Zubaydah’s treatment in his 2006 announcement. “As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so the C.I.A. used an alternative set of procedures…. The procedures were tough, and they were safe, and lawful, and necessary.” Soon, Bush went on, Abu Zubaydah “began to provide information on key al-Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September 11.” Among them, Bush said, were Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, and his fellow conspirator Ramzi Binalshibh. In fact, Binalshibh was not arrested for another six months and K.S.M. not for another year. In K.S.M.’s case, the lead came from an informant motivated by a $25 million reward.

As for K.S.M. himself, who (as Jane Mayer writes) was waterboarded, reportedly hung for hours on end from his wrists, beaten, and subjected to other agonies for weeks, Bush said he provided “many details of other plots to kill innocent Americans.” K.S.M. was certainly knowledgeable. It would be surprising if he gave up nothing of value. But according to a former senior C.I.A. official, who read all the interrogation reports on K.S.M., “90 percent of it was total ****ing ********.” A former Pentagon analyst adds: “K.S.M. produced no actionable intelligence. He was trying to tell us how stupid we were.”

Cheney is clearly hoping for another attack on the United States of America and her citizens so that he can say I told you so! This man is a proven liar and has not been right about anything he has said. About the Iraq war, President Obama's policies. He wants to white wash the legacy of what he and Bush did and it's not going to happen. Also, you acknowledge the torture , but then say it doesn't matter , I was justified. Give me a break. I tried that as a teen with my mother when I broke the rules and it sure as hell didn't work with her. We are the United States of America. We are supposed to occupy and keep the high ground. Cheney let fear rob him of remembering that.

If there are additional memos, they too should be released. Put it all out there for people to read and decide for themselves. I am curious, what does this mean for S.E.R.E. training? Will the US military now stop this type of training?

Cheney and the entire Bush administration should have taken a strong postition of defence against the constant attacks by their political enemies from the get go. Don't torture terrorist, kill them in the field.